The Woolworth Building

You can see the neo-Gothic Woolworth Building soaring up above the tree tops behind me there and that was created for Frank Woolworth who was the owner of the Woolworth retail chain. A legend has it that Woolworth had a bit of a grudge against the MetLife Insurance Company because they once refused him a mortgage. So when the time came to build the Woolworth Building here, he didn't need the mortgage at all. He could pay for the whole thing in cash, several million dollars’ worth. And as a little act of revenge, he also asked his architect to build this building much higher than the MetLife Tower, which was then the world's tallest building at the Madison Square Park. Sure enough, in 1913, when the Woolworth Building opened here, it became the world's tallest building, a good 92 feet taller than the MetLife Tower. And they held on to that title for 17 years until 40 Wall Street came along, and just a few short months after that the Chrysler Building.